How Many Pictures Do You Need for a Funeral Slideshow? (The Perfect Formula)
- Arie Marek
- Nov 22
- 2 min read
When planning a memorial service or celebration of life, one of the most common questions families ask is: "How many photos should I gather?"
It is tempting to want to include every single photo you find in the shoeboxes. However, a memorial video is not just a file storage system—it is a story. If you include too many photos, the video becomes rushed and dizzying. If you include too few, it feels incomplete.
After creating hundreds of professional tributes for families, we have developed a simple formula to help you find the perfect balance.
The Golden Rule: 3-4 Seconds Per Photo
The biggest mistake people make with DIY slideshows is trying to cram 200 photos into one song. This forces the images to fly by in 1 or 2 seconds, which is too fast for the audience to emotionally connect with the image.
For a professional, moving tribute, you need 3 to 4 seconds per photo.
This allows the eye to focus, recognize the face, and absorb the emotion of the moment before transitioning to the next slide.
The Math (Cheat Sheet)
Most songs are between 3 and 4 minutes long. Here is the breakdown based on the length of your music:
1 Song (approx. 3.5 mins): Aim for 50–60 photos.
2 Songs (approx. 7 mins): Aim for 100–120 photos.
3 Songs (approx. 10.5 mins): Aim for 160–180 photos.
Pro Tip: If you have more photos than music, don't speed up the photos! Add another song or use silence at the beginning/end for a moment of reflection.
Organizing Your Photos: Tell a Story, Don't Just Shuffle
Don't just dump all 60 photos into a folder. A meaningful tribute should have a narrative arc. We recommend organizing your photos into three distinct "Chapters":
The Early Years: Childhood, parents, and early school days. (Black and white photos look stunning here).
The Prime of Life: Career, marriage, building a family, and major milestones.
The Legacy: Grandchildren, hobbies, and happy candid moments from later years.
Ordering them chronologically helps the audience relive the journey of that person’s life, rather than jumping randomly from 1950 to 2020 and back again.
A Note on Photo Quality (The "Hidden" Struggle)
Gathering 60 photos is the easy part. The hard part is that many of these photos are likely old physical prints that are dusty, scratched, or fading.
Taking a picture of a picture with your phone often results in glare and low quality that looks blurry on a large TV screen at a funeral home.
This is where we can help.
At Tribute Montage, we don’t just drag-and-drop your files. We offer professional high-resolution scanning and restoration. We remove dust, fix red-eye, and color-correct faded prints so that your loved one looks as vibrant on screen as they do in your memory.
Need Help with the Heavy Lifting?
If the thought of scanning, sorting, and timing 100 photos while grieving feels overwhelming, you don't have to do it alone.
Send us your box of photos. We will scan them, organize them, and sync them perfectly to the music of your choice to create a moving, professional tribute that you can cherish forever.